Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

[Anonymous User]

Hi Community,

I find it difficult to access attachments or photos captured with Field Maps. I can download them 1-by-1 from ArcGIS Online, or use Extract Data in desktop GIS, or use the python scripts in desktop GIS, but I need an easier way to access photos.

Field workers do not have access to Desktop GIS, so the only option they have is to download photos 1-by-1 from AGOL. This is very inefficient when there are hundreds of photos to download.

I would like to suggest either allowing batch downloading of photos from AGOL (zip?), or the option to save photos locally to the mobile device storage  (as well as uploading to AGOL), for downloading when back in the office using a USB cable.

Thanks,

Ben

[TaireVanScoy_ECA]

I like the dual storage idea to AGOL and local if desired at the same time.

[andrewRaaf]

Yes please this is a must-have!

There should be an option to "save attachments to device". Every time I collect a point and take a photo, I need the jpeg file saved to my phone's internal memory AND attached to the point. We need both functions. This is an important feature for file mgmt. We should be able to save to photo automatically to the phone's memory upon collection, without having to download 1by1 and offload from the feature layer later within ArcOnline. Thanks.  

[ChrisGynan]

Hi Ben:

I found your thread and I'm having issues finding the photos taken. Do you know where they are located on-line and how to access them? 

Thanks so much,

Chris

[andrewRaaf]

I have found that, when using an Android phone, the photos that I take when collecting a point also get saved to my google photos account. Once I get back to the office and connect to wifi, my google photos automatically updates and the photos then become part of my photos.google.com cloud storage. It's a less-than-elegant workaround but at least I have access to the jpegs via google photos. I still think there should be an option within the App to simply save the jpegs to the phone's memory upon collection. 

[ChrisGynan]

Thanks for your response. I have an iPhone and the photos are not saved to the phone. Perhaps there is a way to control that. It seems that I need ArcGIS pro to download the photos as a geodatabase package. Perhaps others can comment on this?

[Anonymous User]

One important thing to remember is that you still need traceability of your photos. If you have collected 150 photos in for instance survey123, you need to be able to sort them by for instance ObjectId or some other key attribute.. Otherwise it could take forever to find the right photo to go along with the correct feature..

The batch download from ArcGIS Online/Enterprise would be awesome and more elegant than downloading to your phone, since you would just have to transfer them to your computer anyway - in my opinion 🙂

[ENVGroup]

Yeah, I'm starting to hate ArcGIS because it's such a pain to get photos off of it in a usable way. It's a great system for collecting data but I've wasted a lot of time trying to download the photos all at once with a numbering system that matches what I record on maps. I probably just don't know how, but it should be a simple system that takes just a couple minutes plus the actual download time. How can this be done?

[LaineyLe_Blanc1]

We need to be able to batch download all the attachments from AGOL with the global ID or spatial data included. Downloading one-by-one is inefficient and easy to lose track of what image is linked to what point. We use field maps primarily for geological fieldwork collecting structural data and outcrop photo's resulting in hundreds of points, not being able to download all attachments have soured some users from using Field Maps at all.

[andrewRaaf]

This feature is still missing from Field Maps. Our crew has a workaround where you take the photo via your phone first, then collect the point in FieldMaps and use the button to "attach photos" rather than "take new photo". In this way, the photo is saved to phone's memory and also saved within the AGO layer. It's imperfect workaround and ESRI really needs to update this functionality because it's ridiculous that the photo files would only be accessible by clicking one by one through individual points. We need a batch download for the jpegs. 

[cbp-geus]

We have the exact same problem. Either our field geologists have to take the photos with the camera  app on the phone and then 'attach' the photo through the ArcGIS Field Maps app in order to have it locally on the phone, or take the photo with the Field Maps app and then eksport the photos individually, in order to have the photos on the phone. Non of those options are optimal when working in the field and offline.

It is only when our field geologists are back home that we can make an extraction of all their field photos from ArcGIS Field Maps. This can currently only be done after all the phones are synchronised to AGOL and from there a combined geodatabase is downloaded. From here we use a python script to extract the attachments from the gdb, as there are no toolbox or batch functions for that yet in ArcGIS Pro.